Sawdust flies as Nic Fries with Sierra Nevada Tree Removal of Groveland limbs a drought-stressed, beetle-killed ponderosa pine Wednesday near a home on North Bear Clover Court in Cedar Ridge northeast of Sonora. The nonprofit Tree Mortality Aid Program of Tuolumne County has helped more than 50 fixed-income seniors and disabled property owners pay for removal of more than 250 dead or dying trees since September 2016. (Guy McCarthy / Union Democrat)

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Drought-stressed, beetle-killed ponderosas more than 125 years old and taller than 100 feet stand near the home of Kathy Kennedy, 72, who says she can't afford removal costs of $400 a tree to reduce the threat of falling pines where she and her 4-year-old granddaughter live. (Guy McCarthy / Union Democrat)

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Cordelia Strain, 4, runs Wednesday while Glenn Gottschall with the nonprofit Tree Mortality Aid Program of Tuolumne County and Cordelia's grandmother, Kathy Kennedy, show a visitor where dead trees threaten Kennedy's home in Cedar Ridge. (Guy McCarthy / Union Democrat)

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A ponderosa more than 100 feet tall thunders to the ground Wednesday while a worker with Sierra Nevada Tree Removal of Groveland watches at a property on North Bear Clover Court in Cedar Ridge northeast of Sonora. (Guy McCarthy / Union Democrat)

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A ponderosa more than 100 feet tall leans where it came to rest a month ago when a gust of wind blew it over at the home of Kathy Kennedy, 72, who says she and her 4-year-old granddaughter now go to stay with neighbors whenever the wind blows, because "it's too dangerous." (Guy McCarthy / Union Democrat)

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A chainsaw, oil and fuel sit Wednesday on sections of cut ponderosa pine sickened and killed by drought-stress and beetle infestation at the home of Kathy Kennedy, 72, in Cedar Ridge. (Guy McCarthy / Union Democrat)

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A worker with Sierra Nevada Tree Removal of Groveland trims an edge of a cut ponderosa pine in a Cedar Ridge neighborhood struck by tree mortality in the current dead tree epidemic. (Guy McCarthy / Union Democrat)

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Glenn Gottschall with the nonprofit Tree Mortality Aid Program of Tuolumne County stands Wednesday outside a home on North Bear Clover Court in Cedar Ridge northeast of Sonora where TMAP funds are helping pay for removal of 18 dead ponderosas older than 125 years and more than 100 feet tall. (Guy McCarthy / Union Democrat)

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Drought-stressed, beetle-killed ponderosas more than 125 years old and taller than 100 feet stand Wednesday near the home of Kathy Kennedy, 72, in Cedar Ridge. (Guy McCarthy / Union Democrat)

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Rick Whybra, with the Yosemite Foothills FireSafe Council in Groveland, and Glenn Gottschall, with the nonprofit Tree Mortality Aid Program of Tuolumne County, listen Wednesday to Nic Fries with Sierra Nevada Tree Removal, on a Cedar Ridge property struck in recent years by tree mortality. (Guy McCarthy / Union Democrat)

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Kathy Kennedy, 72, stands on her deck Wednesday near a dead ponderosa that blew into her roof and the broken stump of another ponderosa, while Glenn Gottschall, with the nonprofit Tree Mortality Aid Program of Tuolumne County, looks at a ponderosa stump he said shows the former tree was 160 years old. (Guy McCarthy / Union Democrat)